Raven Prince and Steel Bard – pt 1 – GreywolftheWanderer

Reading Time:
15 Minutes

That weird chair in the alcove across the hall was talking to him. It wanted John to go sit in it, right now – but not a command exactly, more of an earnest plea. Still, it was talking to him. Nobody else seemed to be hearing it, though, just him. He cocked his head and looked at it more closely. Seemed like it was made outta turquoise glass panels and a shitload of gnarly solder, winding across and around the glass panels in twining ropes, columns, and branches of heavy silvery metal, but all very bright and shiny, whereas real solder was usually kind of a dull grey. The arms of the chair had dull grey-green hand-size pads at the ends, surrounded by more of the same soldered ropes and twirls. He had no idea what any of it was really made out of, but doubted it was what it seemed. No way that stuff would be strong enough for a chair.

In truth, he’d never seen anything like it, much less ever been talked at, mentally or otherwise, by a damned alien barbershop-style glass and metal chair. There was nothing even remotely like it over at McMurdo, unless someone had one squirreled away in their private quarters, which he very much doubted. He’d been there for months, now, quietly flying around out on the Big Ice and minding his own business indoors, and hadn’t seen anything of the sort anywhere. That despite the rather large amount of fucking that happened over there, for lack of much else to do after work. The Air Force didn’t officially care where you got your dick wet, so long as you kept your own shit squared away and didn’t make paperwork for anyone, and most of the population were civilians, anyway.

This chair made John curious as hell, to be honest. This whole weird little place did.

Mind you, his day had been plenty weird enough already, after he barely avoided getting shot down out over the mountains (along with General O’Neill!), and by nothing he’d ever seen the like of before, either – some kind of brightly glowing yellow-orange squid-looking thing that had been fast as hell, and nearly impossible to dodge or shake off. He was lucky he’d been flying his favourite helo that day, which he personally helped maintain, and damned lucky something had shut whatever-it-was off at the last possible moment.

Plus, there was that whole keeping General O’Neill from being killed thing. Hell, not to mention the whole keeping his own ass from getting killed thing. O’Neill had been very impressed with his flying, not something John was used to hearing from any of his recent COs, much less from their direct CO.

And now he was down the rabbit hole for real, having been brought down through what had to be damn near a mile-deep elevator shaft, carved straight down into the depths of the ice. The shaft was perfectly round, the sides mirror-smooth, while the frame that held the standard steel mesh freight elevator cage was just bolted down along one side of it. That must have taken a shitload of hard work, or some kind of entirely new technology, because John had never heard of any mage – fae, human, or other, with that kind of power, or any laser anywhere near big enough to bore a shaft that size. Just the idea of having that much solid ice over his head was freaky as hell, and he staunchly resolved not to think about that at all while he was down here, if he could avoid it.

Around his wrist his shield bracelet was pleasantly warm and tingling, hard at work protecting him from all that steel, even the parts that were nearer to being cold iron than not. He had to work to keep from shivering at the feel of it, even though like this, it couldn’t burn him. The bracelet he wore was custom work, not the standard protective stuff that the military paid for. John had standards, after all. They might not communicate well these days, or at all, but he was still a part of his family, accustomed to living in a certain level of comfort and safety wherever he went. The mage who had built the bracelet for him was based in Boston and had a long waiting list for most people, not so much for Padraig Sheppard’s younger son. As a result, the magic of the bracelet sat easily against his own magic, working with instead of against it. A plain black knitted wristband kept it covered from prying eyes. Anyone who didn’t have mage sight would never have known it was there. John just figured it really wasn’t anyone else’s business, to be honest. The Air Force knew, of course, but they kept personnel files confidential for a reason.

Come to find out, there was a whole damn alien base down underneath that big geodesic dome he’d only been allowed to park outside of on previous trips out here from McMurdo. He’d been ferrying scientists and others out here for months, and had only ever stayed in his helicopter on previous visits. What with his black mark from Afghanistan, he hadn’t ever been given the clearance to see what was inside it. And this base held a weird mix of ordinary computer components and some kind of strange architecture, like nothing he’d ever seen. Tabletops with rows of glowing crystals sticking out of them, and what looked kind of like regular computer monitors, but displaying strange, shifting luminescent colour washes mixed with vertical columns of some kind of characters he’d never seen anywhere, and he’d seen his share of different languages serving overseas. Yep, down the rabbit hole for damn sure.

But today, John had just kept his yap shut and followed General O’Neill’s orders. He was still kinda stuck on the “holy shit, I’m not dead” part of things, and hadn’t been paying much attention to where he wandered, until he saw this chair, and heard it talking to him. What the absolute fuck was that? Then he realized what he was hearing – some guy standing next to it, with a thick Scottish accent, was freaking out about having set off a weapon by accident, and his attention zoomed in sharp again as he chewed the guy out for that near-miss. Only, that chair kept on talking to him, like he wasn’t already having a whole other conversation. Rude.

But next thing he knew, he was dodging past the cute Scotsman, ignoring his protests, and slipping into the chair without even really thinking about it – then freezing, as he felt something a lot more powerful than he’d felt in years touch his mind. Greetings, Scion – we have not seen one like you in a long time. We await your command. And the chair leaned back under him and started to glow bright blue from inside the glass, even as the floor around the chair, and part of the ceiling above it also lit up in varying shades of blue, while a white spotlight shone down on him from overhead.

Whoa, what the fuck? What’s all this about? He was vaguely aware of continued Scottish fussing.

Then he heard a new voice ask him, “Show me where we are in the universe, Major,” and so he did, somehow, as a transparent three-dimensional map of the solar system formed over their heads, as accurate as John could make it. Then after a minute, he wondered silently if it could update that map to current NASA knowledge, and it immediately got sharper, and showed many more small bodies and transient orbital details.

“Nice,” muttered the new guy, “really well done, actually. Good, now maybe we can get somewhere useful with this thing.”

New guy had walked around to face him, since the chair had spun him halfway around while tilting back, to end up facing the far side of this small room/large alcove. John hadn’t told it to do that, it just did it by itself.

New guy turned out to be about John’s age, bright blue eyes and reddish-brown hair, a bit stocky but strong-looking. Crooked mouth, left corner kind of downturned. He marched up to the chair and held out his hand. “Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD,” he said. “And you are?”

John blinked, shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Uh, Major John Sheppard, USAF.” He could still feel the systems linked to the chair waiting for him to give them a task, pretty much any task. But hell, for it to have been buried under this much ice, just how old was this place, anyway?

Two point five million years, Scion. We have seen very few of the People since the great dying.

John bit down on his lip to keep from blurting out more questions. He didn’t want to let on how strong his rapport with this thing was, didn’t want to lose his remaining freedoms by getting himself claimed by some top-secret project, or get called crazy and get locked up if no-one believed him.

Then he heard General O’Neill’s voice again, and had to force himself to look over at the man.

“Sheppard, what the hell, I told you not to touch anything!” He didn’t sound pissed, though, just kind of bemused.

“Sorry, sir – I-I just sat down, is all. Then all this stuff happened,” and he gestured at the glowing chair and brightly lit-up surroundings.

“Never mind all that, there’s things here we really do need to know, and maybe Major Sheppard can find them for us. He’s certainly more in tune with this technology than anyone else we’ve tried so far. Did it light up like that for you when you sat in it during Anubis’ attempted invasion, General?” That was the new guy again – right, McKay – bright CalTrans orange fleece jacket and quirky-looking mouth. He was the only one not gawping at John like a country bumpkin, so there was that at least.

O’Neill shook his head. “No. The chair itself lit up, but not the rest of all this.”

“Okay then. Major Sheppard, ask it if it knows the Gate address for Atlantis, would you?”

“Okay. Gimme a second.” And he closed his eyes again while he mentally asked the chair McKay’s question. Weird as it sounded, that was all he did. The chair answered eagerly.

Of course, Scion. Tell them to make note of it. But when he opened his eyes again, McKay was already busily scribbling on his tablet, while over John’s head the display had changed to a set of yet a different kind of characters, strange spiky-looking ones that seemed unrelated to the things he’d already seen on the weird alien monitor screens. Both O’Neill and McKay looked like they did recognize them, though.

This day just kept getting weirder and weirder.

Meanwhile the Scottish man had left and come back at some point, dragging another fella along with him, a guy with short brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses, who moved like a soldier, but dressed and acted like an academic, and who got all excited when he saw the latest display. “Jack, that’s it, that’s got to be it – the address for Atlantis! How did you find it? And notice, it’s an 8-chevron address, so it must be in another galaxy! Oho, and who is this?”

Which led in turn to another round of introductions and explanations, the newest guy being one Daniel Jackson, who apparently had come back from the dead a while back.

What the absolute fuck? No, I can’t even with this shit. Movin’ right along… John was resolutely not gonna go there, oh hell no.

After that fun little interlude, the general pointed at John and said “Come with me, Major, we’ve got some paperwork you’re gonna need to fill out.” So John climbed up out of the chair, which obligingly tilted upright and spun itself back around again, so he could do so. But he couldn’t help noticing, as he followed the general out of there, that Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, now getting enthusiastically talked at by the newest guy, had an ass that was a true modern marvel. John had to mentally scruff himself, and concentrate on just following the general and walking in a straight line. Wouldn’t do to go walking into walls right now, nope, not at all.

Still, it’d been a long time since he’d seen an ass that fine, on man or woman. Put all sorts of inappropriate ideas into his head.

And here he’d wanted to stay inconspicuous down here, not draw any attention to himself. So much for that brilliant idea.

—–///—–

“Oh, Major Sheppard?”

John sighed, and stopped walking. “Yes, Dr. Weir?”

“Did you decide whether you’ll be joining the Expedition yet?” Her eyes and her voice didn’t match – when she was speaking to him, she always pitched her voice kind of honey-sweet, low and a bit husky, but her eyes and her attitude were wary and more than a little cold. She was nervous around him, as many pure humans were once they spotted his ears and figured out he had at least some Fae blood, but she clearly envied his Ancient gene and coveted him for her project because of it.

This whole situation was really fucking weird, and John had no idea right now if he really wanted to sign up for this crazy Expedition to another fucking galaxy, or dodge trouble and just stay put in Antarctica, flying helicopters and trying to stay out of any additional trouble as best he could. He’d come pretty close to getting booted right outta the Air Force before getting sent down here to cool off, after all. And he’d already read and signed the biggest goddamn NDA he’d ever seen in his life, just to cover all the new knowledge he’d gained today.

The general had just kept smirking at him while he read it. O’Neill was the strangest general John had ever met, snarky and informal as hell. And now John’s mind was officially blown. Stargates, gate teams, alien spaceships, human-built spaceships, a dozen different alien races, wars between humans and aliens already a decade old – yeah, blown didn’t even begin to cover this shit!

There was a lot to be said, in one way, for just staying at McMurdo and putting in the rest of his twenty. He didn’t have that much left to do, maybe another year and a half, and he could do that here easily. He’d seen enough action and then some, at this point, and after losing his entire team on that last mission, he was really kinda done with all that.

Shit, he could retire to his grandfather’s house in Maui and just spend his days surfing. A fella could get used to that kinda life, to be sure. Maybe visit Thailand or Japan again, and just fucking relax for a while. The East Coast branch of his family hated that place because it was too rustic for their so-called refined tastes, too far out from the fancier parts of town. But it suited John just fine. He liked it that way. His grandfather had built the place to the highest standards, it just wasn’t all dolled up and overdecorated, the way his father’s house had always been back when he’d still lived there. Padraig Sheppard spent way too damn much time and energy obsessing over how important he was, and how others perceived him. To John, though, there was a lot to be said for an awesome laid-back Hawaiian beach house, especially when considered from out here on the Big Ice.

He did have one problem right now, though. Being basically stalked by Weir ever since he’d first sat down in the Chair was really starting to creep him the fuck out. There was something seriously squirrelly about Elizabeth Weir, and John wasn’t at all sure he wanted to deal with her on any kind of long-term basis. She put the hair up on the back of his neck something awful. And she just kept turning up almost everywhere he went. He was damn glad they at least had separate men’s and women’s showers in the barracks! She wasn’t even remotely close to his type.

Other than her pestering him, he liked it in Antarctica; the snow and ice were peaceful and quiet, except for the ever-present wind, and he enjoyed the challenge of flying in these conditions, proving his skills yet again, and staying out of emotional human tangles. After the clusterfuck in Afghanistan, it was a nice change. Well, until the whole horribly-overpowered Ancient-munitions friendly-fire thing, anyway.

John looked back up at her and shrugged, making no excuse for getting momentarily lost in thought. “Still thinking about it, Dr. Weir. There’s a lot of important things to consider, you know.” Like, how could they get better snacks delivered, and bigger rations of snacks, for the staff (and himself, naturally). It was easy to burn a lot of calories living down here, warm clothes and good insulation notwithstanding. That was John’s story, and he was sticking to it. But he knew that if he said any of that that out loud, he’d be making a potentially bad enemy, something he preferred to avoid if at all possible. So he bit his lip and kept his face studiously neutral, refusing to even go there. “I promise, I will have an answer for you soon.”

Weir looked annoyed, but she didn’t push the issue any further, just nodded impatiently before striding melodramatically through the mess hall doors and off down the hallway. Oh, man, all she needs is a black vampire cape and some high-heeled boots. John snorted, barely managing not to actually laugh out loud, then got back to his lunch, such as it was. Even a lukewarm MRE was better than nothing, though he’d rather have had a nice fresh turkey sandwich. No joy out here, there really wasn’t anything fresh to eat before the supply run happened. Still, a smart fella ate when food was available, because ya just never know what might happen next, and he’d been in the military more than long enough to learn that lesson.

—–///—–

“Hey, you wanna play some chess?”

John looked up from his book. McKay was standing in the rec room door with a wooden travel set in his hands, as well as a bag of Cheetos. “Yeah, sure, I’ll play you.”

They spent the next few minutes getting set up and comfortable. The rec room had the usual military blend of battered and outdated twentieth-century office furniture, and a few equally-worn stuffed chairs, usually repaired with ample festoons of duct tape, along with a couple of folding card tables and the usual instant coffee and horrible tea bags. It even had powdered creamer and an elderly-looking jar of sugar. If he thought of this base as an FOB, it actually made sense. Right now, he was just happy to see those Cheetos – he hadn’t had any in a while. The next resupply flight wasn’t due at McMurdo for another week, weather permitting. Which was likely, it was summertime down here right now. But hell, even in summer, the weather here could get crazy at the drop of a hat. And crazy was definitely the right word for it – storms here were worse than anywhere else he’d served, which was damn near everywhere, really.

McKay waved the Cheetos bag at him, and John helped himself to a generous scoop, then helped set the chess pieces up. He was looking forward to this.

—–///—–